"No one has put more on the line in the name of climate science than Dr. Michael Mann," said Larry Schweiger, president and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation. "He's repeatedly gone all-in against polluters and their allies, staking his reputation on the integrity of climate science -- and he's won every time. Dr. Mann's tireless work to advance our understanding of climate science, help the public understand global warming and speak out for what must be done to confront it is an invaluable contribution to this and future generations of Americans."

Mann is most well known for his Nature publication with Raymond S. Bradley and Malcolm K. Hughes in 1998, "Global-scale temperature patterns and climate forcing over the past six centuries." The "hockey stick graph" showing the rapid rise in the Earth's temperature of the past 100 years, associated with carbon emissions, first appeared in this publication.

"Never did I imagine, when my co-authors and I published the 'hockey stick' curve a decade and a half ago, that I would find myself at the center of the larger debate over human-caused climate change," said Mann. "But regardless of how I ended up a prominent figure in the debate, I consider myself privileged to be in a position to inform the societal discourse over the greatest threat humans have ever faced, the threat of dangerous and potentially irreversible climate change."